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Will Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis Support Cryptocurrency In Greece?
giulioprisco writes New Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, former Economist-in-Residence at game developer Valve Corporation, sees something like Bitcoin — or, more likely, a state-controlled "Fedcoin" — possibly playing a role in the (necessarily creative) rescue of the Greek economy. "The technology of Bitcoin, if suitably adapted, can be employed profitably in the Eurozone," he said.
Will Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis Support Cryptocurrency In Greece?
No
As obvious as the question is stupid.....
If Greece implodes, it could take the entire Eurozone with it by causing domino defaults, because Greece owes a lot of money to other nations that are already in dire fiscal straights
Two years ago maybe, when the whole euro-zone was in a depression and there weren't plans in place but now they've prepared and the Greek economy is only about 2% of the total. Germany has been very ready to play hardball and let Greece fall on their sword if they don't stick to the rescue plan. You have to remember that once you've made sure the other dominos won't fall many want to make Greece an example of what happens when you spend irresponsibly. So does their new PM really want to go "all in" and find out if they'll really get kicked out of the-euro zone? That's some real high stakes poker there if he gets called they tell him to get out.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Iceland did the right thinag. The Government shouldn't be forced to pay the debts of failed private companies. Even if they are banks. The PIIGS are all suffering because they followed the EU command to assume private banking debts. Notice how even in Greece, which had the most government debt, supposedly they had to cave in early because other 'the ATMs wouldn't have money to dispense next week' because of a banking run. Bah.
More like the capitalists don't dare let them succeed. It would show the world that there was another way, and demands to go that way would escalate in other states.
I will assume that you are not a troll. The fault lies within the Greeks themselves. You cannot forever consume more than you produce. No matter who you are. Capitalist or socialist. Greece has borrowed to support their lifestyle since WWII, if not before. They are constantly running an operating deficit. Nobody wants to lend Greece money because Greece does not want to change their ways. They want to consume more than they produce. The Greeks would't lend themselves the money!
Austerity is not the problem, it's a solution. Did you Notice that Greece has not proposed one solution in which they pay back the debt? They only demand they are bringing to the table is that they can't be asked to reduce their spending. It's humiliating.
Now some will come forward and say that a recession is not the time to reduce spending. This is right when you are not always running a deficit and when the burden of your debt is manageable. Greece was forgiven 100 billion euros already. If the Greeks don't want the austerity measures let them propose a solution to the repayment of all the loans including the 100 billion which was forgiven on the condition of austerity.
I am more of a socialist than a capitalist. I honestly believe that the state needs to help even the field in order to produce more than is consumed which translates to building wealth. Yeah I agree with you the boogieman did it. It's just that the boogieman in this case it's the Greeks who think that they are entitled to live beyond their means.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Yes, just like we wiped out North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and just how we've just about wiped out ISIS and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Once the possibility of someone exiting the Euro becomes real other countries will be tempted or pushed out basically making it pointless.
It was an economic marriage. And like in any marriage there are good times and bad times. Unfortunately some in Europe don't think of it this way.
Not pointless - there's real economic benefit to a single currency for Europe.
If it's a marriage, then Greece is the abusive, cheating spouse. They've gone from irresponsibly spending more than they could ever repay (since they can't inflate their way out of debt), through a brief attempt at surviving austerity (terms of the debt relief they got - everyone knew it would suck), to saying "screw you, we're too big to fail, we're gonna spend spend spend, what are you gonna do about it?"
Greece was in a better economic position than most of Eastern Europe at the start of all this, with a better standard of living (even had they chosen to live within their means) than many later entrants in to Euro. But they chose to spend vastly more than they were making, running up the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in Europe, inflating that standard of living artificially until they could borrow no more.
What the US thinks of that isn't very relevant, but those Easter European countries that made real sacrifice to join the Euro, and who have been keeping their debt down and surviving with a much lower standard of living than Greece and directly paying for Greece's first bailout in some cases aren't impressed with Greece's excuses. At this point, a "Grexit" will be less disruptive than continued bailouts.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The fact that the Troika hasn't been willing to give one iota on the Greece issue should be enough of a reflection on how little consequence they think an exit of Greece from the eurozone would be. Germany in particular doesn't want to give any ground (I imagine all of the nazi-name calling has played no small part), but they're hardly alone, many countries are taking a very hardline stance on Greece. Most parties feel that the consequence of giving way to Greece could be significant, but the consequences of their exit - while not completely painless - would not be that dramatic.
On the other hand, in Greece, there's only one route for exit, and that's capital controls (or a rapid conversion over the weekend) where everyone's assets are converted to some kind of new-drachma, which instantly devalues to half its value or less. Which is why everyone is taking their euros out of the banks, they're not stupid (unfortunately, thieves aren't stupid either, breakins have become an epidemic as they look for people hoarding money at home).
I can't see a cryptocurrency helping in any way... if anything I'd guess it'd only serve to unnerve markets even more and lose even more value as a consequence. I could picture it maybe as a simultaneous and rate-locked currency to a physical New Drachma, maybe. But it sounds IMHO like an incredibly risky move even then. I mean, one presumes for example that there's a government-controlled master key to "print" more cryptocoins? Then that means that your entire economy can be crushed overnight by someone hacking, physically stealing, misusing, cracking, or whatnot your master key. Isn't that an unnecessarily big risk to take? And on an individual level it seems full of problems as well...
Don't get me wrong, I don't think cryptocurrencies are inherently an evil or shouldn't exist. But I would have serious second thoughts about such a massive nationwide rollout on a country that's already in chaos.
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
There's also this big lie that "Greece has been saddled with debts that they could never pay". Greece's state assets are worth an order of magnitude more than their debts. They could sell off a tenth of them and have all of their debts in the clear right away.
Obviously, they don't want to privatize everything, and I don't blame them. But the concept that this debt is impossible to service is simply a lie. They just don't want to. Heck, they could do it without excessive pain to the middle class or extensive privatization if only they'd go after their wealthy - there's a couple dozen Greek billionaires and countless more in the next eschelons. And these are the biggest tax dodgers who don't pay anywhere close to their fair share. But Greece is apparently either unable or unwilling to go after them.
We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.